On a cold afternoon in February 1991, a frightening new drug hit the streets of New York City, a synthetic narcotic marketed in packets labeled “Tango & Cash.” As police scrambled to warn heroin users of the danger, the overdose victims began piling up in hospital emergency rooms and county morgues across three states.
As a Drug Enforcement Administration agent said at the time, “We don’t know yet who’s putting this stuff out there, but whoever he is, he’s an ice-cold son of a bitch.” Fentanyl had come to America.
In 2024, fentanyl is killing nearly 200 Americans every day, a seemingly unstoppable narcotic curse like none ever seen before. But few know that this plague began in the brilliant mind of the high-school dropout and chemistry prodigy that the DEA called “the best and most dangerous clandestine chemist” it has ever encountered.
The clandestine chemist was George Erik Marquardt. Starting at just twelve years old, Marquardt used his extraordinary talents to make every illegal drug in the book, from bootleg booze to heroin. He brewed LSD for Timothy Leary and the Grateful Dead, methamphetamine for outlaw motorcycle gangs, nerve gas for Idaho Nazis, and even life-saving AZT for AIDS patients. But when that ice-cold son of a bitch turned to fentanyl, thousands of Americans would die.
In LETHAL DOSES: The Story Behind “The Godfather of Fentanyl”, award-winning author and former undercover agent for the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics John Madinger, tells the remarkable story of DEA’s three-year pursuit, the genesis of our fentanyl problem today, and the uniquely dangerous evil genius he spent hundreds of hours interviewing.
About John Madinger
I joined the drug war in 1974 as a sheriff’s deputy, then served as a narcotics agent, supervisor, and administrator and a special agent/criminal investigator with the U.S. Department of the Treasury before hitting mandatory retirement age in 2010. I spent fifteen years of that time in undercover assignments from Florida to Honolulu and worked major fraud and money laundering cases, becoming one of the country’s leading authorities on money laundering and the author of a textbook, Money Laundering: A Guide for Criminal Investigators (3rd Edition), which is used in universities, by the Departments of Justice and Treasury, and foreign governments around the world.
I hold a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Indiana University and a master’s degree in history from the University of Hawaii and graduated from the Oklahoma state police academy, the Drug Enforcement Administration’s National Academy, and was the honor graduate in the Treasury Criminal Investigation Training Program. I received numerous awards and citations from the Internal Revenue Service, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force program and was certified to testify in federal court as an expert witness on money laundering. As part of my job, I developed and taught classes on money laundering and financial crime in the United States, Asia, Europe, Africa and the Caribbean, working overseas in over twenty countries.
On the literary front, I also wrote another textbook, Confidential Informant: Law Enforcement’s Most Valuable Tool, and a history of the opium trade, Opium Kings of Old Hawaii, as well as two novels, Death on Diamond Head and Pipe Dreams, and a memoir, Going Under: Kidnapping, Murder, and a Life Undercover, for WildBlue Press, a finalist for Killer Nashville’s Silver Falchion Award. I’ve also received awards for fiction, non-fiction, short stories, academic writing, and even poetry.
I grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii, where I spent all but three years of my career, and currently live in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma with my wife and a Portuguese Water Dog named Indy.
Reviews
“Madinger’s prose is compelling … one of the finest books of the year, successful on so many levels! Very highly recommended.”—Grady Harp, an Amazon Top 100 Hall of Fame Reviewer.
“This true crime masterpiece reveals the origins of fentanyl and the relentless efforts to stop its deadly spread. Marquardt’s journey even included a meeting with J. Robert Oppenheimer, adding a historical twist to his dark legacy.” — John J. Kelly, Detroit Free Press
“The fictional genius of Breaking Bad’s Walter White does not hold a candle to the real chemical genius of the man who unleashed the horrors of fentanyl on an addictive world. In this era of opioid crisis, Madinger’s book shines a light on an underworld where truth is stranger, and darker, than any fiction. … This is investigative journalism and narrative biography at its finest.”— Kathryn Picard, Librarian, 5-Star review
“LETHAL DOSES introduces us to a mass murderer who kills with his chemistry, an outlaw with his own moral code, and a conspiracy that continues to affect us all. Riveting, brilliant, unputdownable. Deep in research and insight, with all the twists and turns of the very best thriller, this book does more than entertain, it enlightens. Madinger may have written the next true crime classic. It’s one of the best books I’ve read this year.”—Jan Brogan, author of The Combat Zone: Murder, Race and Boston’s Struggle for Justice, Final Copy and A Confidential Source
“Lethal Doses is a disturbing look into the mind of a despicable individual who could care less about lives he ruined and those he killed. A serial killer of the worst kind.” — Flying Books Review
“This amazing, well-researched book lifts the curtain on the clandestine drug lab business and how a high school dropout became one of the most dangerous chemists in the fentanyl trade.”—Maureen Boyle, author of SHALLOW GRAVES: The Hunt for the New Bedford Highway Serial Killer and CHILD LAST SEEN
“Lethal Doses reveals the evil of George Marquardt, the chemist who created illicit drugs like Heroin, LSD, Meth, and Angel Dust who finally graduated to Fentanyl. Society showed him more compassion than he ever showed his victims.” — Brad Butler, Author of Without Redemption
“Madinger allows readers to appreciate what actually goes into investigating and prosecuting international drug criminals while virtually embedding them into the front lines of the War against Fentanyl.” — Chris Cordani, Book Spectrum
